Teaching Guide: Exploring the Life and Work of Henry Clay

By James Walsh, Scott County High School, Georgetown, Kentucky

This teaching guide helps instructors use a specific primary source set, Henry Clay: The Great Compromiser, in the classroom. It offers discussion questions, classroom activities, and primary source analysis tools. It is intended to spark pedagogical creativity by giving a sample approach to the material. Please feel free to share, reuse, and adapt the resources in this guide for your teaching purposes.

Classroom activities

Ask the class to gather information on Andrew Jackson. Divide the class into three groups and have them debate who would have been better for the US as president: the man who was president, Andrew Jackson, the man who tried and failed, Henry Clay, or neither? Each student should provide a piece of evidence for their group to use in the debate.